this insect condemning the whole theatrical service as a disseminator
of bad morals because it has Black Crooks in it; forgetting that if that
were sufficient ground people would condemn the pulpit because it had
Crooks and Kallochs and Sabines in it!

No, I am not trying to rob the pulpit of any atom of its full share and
credit in the work of disseminating the meat and marrow of the gospel of
Christ; but I am trying to get a moment's hearing for worthy agencies
in the same work, that with overwrought modesty seldom or never claim a
recognition of their great services. I am aware that the pulpit does
its excellent one-tenth (and credits itself with it now and then, though
most of the time a press of business causes it to forget it); I am
aware that in its honest and well-meaning way it bores the people
with uninflammable truisms about doing good; bores them with correct
compositions on charity; bores them, chloroforms them, stupefies them
with argumentative mercy without a flaw in the grammar or an emotion
which the minister could put in in the right place if he turned his back
and took his finger off the manuscript. And in doing these things the
pulpit is doing its duty, and let us believe that it is likewise doing
its best, and doing it in the most harmless and respectable way. And so
I have said, and shall keep on saying, let us give the pulpit its full
share of credit in elevating and ennobling the people; but when a pulpit
takes to itself authority to pass judgment upon the work and worth of
just as legitimate an instrument of God as itself, who spent a long life
preaching from the stage the selfsame gospel without the alteration of
a single sentiment or a single axiom of right, it is fair and just that
somebody who believes that actors were made for a high and good purpose,
and that they accomplish the object of their creation and accomplish
it well, should protest. And having protested, it is also fair and
just--being driven to it, as it were--to whisper to the Sabine pattern
of clergyman, under the breath, a simple, instructive truth, and say,
"Ministers are not the only servants of God upon earth, nor his most
efficient ones, either, by a very, very long distance!" Sensible
ministers already know this, and it may do the other kind good to find
it out.

But to cease teaching and go back to the beginning again, was it not
pitiable--that spectacle? Honored and honorable old George Holland,
whose theatrical mini